CONGRATULATIONS to Wayne and Vonni Castro!They are graduates of the West Angeles CDC Homebuyers Education Program. They recently purchased a lovely new Spanish style home
in South L.A.
What did these new HomeOWNERS have to say?
Q: Home buying steps that can be a surprise for a new homebuyer.
Listing Prices (particularly Short Sales) - Many times we found homes listed within or below our price point. But, after submitting our offer, we were told the seller is actually only accepting offers that were $10k-$20k more than the listing price.
Q: Favorite thing the realtor did that you didn't know was part of her job.
We had a wonderful realtor! Brandie was with us every step of the way. The biggest surprise is that she seemed to work through until late hours in the night throughout the week. To accommodate our work schedules, she would sometimes show us homes as late as 8pm on weeknights, during lunch hour, in addition to showing us 3-4 houses on weekends. Even though we knew she was incredibly busy, she made us feel like her most important clients.
Q: Patience is key! You may look at several homes before you will buy.
We searched for nearly a year before our offer was finally accepted. Most times we were out bid by investors with cash, and then there were other buyers with more funding. By the end of 2011, we had looked at over 30 homes; most we had put in offers on. It was a challenge, at the time not to give up.
Q: What ideals did you have about the home buying process.
What was your actual experience?
We thought searching for a home to purchase would be a much faster process. We started looking in June 2011, and thought we would be moved into a house by December, or January 2012, at the latest.
That was NOT the case. We looked for 10 months, putting in offers and facing disappointment at nearly every turn. Ironically, despite being warned that the escrow period would be the most tedious, it went fairly quickly and smoothly. We opened escrow on our house in early March, and closed in the first week of April. We credit that mostly to our housing counselors, Dawn and Patricia. They advised us of what documents that would be required, and to keep updated versions of them on hand throughout the escrow period. It helped things go rather smoothly. We even surprised our loan officer at how fast we would get documents to her.
Q: Now that you're homeowners, how does it feel?
It's exciting! We can hardly believe that we were blessed with the style of house we really wanted, and it was fully renovated and remodeled. We feel that God has truly blessed us beyond our expectations! The best part is knowing that everything we put into it (mortgage, upgrades, anything) is ours!
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